Deutsche Bank Building Deconstruction Delayed. Again.

Once again, deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank building across from Ground Zero has been delayed. Now, according to a status update from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the tower is on pace to be down by January 2010, three months later than the last schedule.

The new delay is the latest turn in what has become an ongoing menace of a project—one that has taken far longer than officials or construction industry executives ever imagined. First begun in 2005, the tower was on track to be down by early 2008. Initial work proved more regulation-heavy than first imagined, and then a fire in August 2007 that killed two firefighters stopped work for months. A new, more lengthy deconstruction plan followed, though it has taken far longer than initially scheduled.

The most recent delay comes as a result of a small electrical fire, which shut work down at the building in early April.

“Bovis [the contractor] estimates that as a result of the electrical incident, deconstruction will not resume until mid-July 2009,” the LMDC wrote in its status update, emailed yesterday. “We have directed Bovis to take all appropriate action, including adding additional work shifts to the job, to enable them to resume deconstruction sooner.”

It will take an estimated six months to bring down the tower once deconstruction begins (the contractors are currently doing abatement work). Should it go past January, it would seem to delay the Port Authority’s schedule, as the agency needs the site cleared so it can build a Vehicle Security Center.